CHAPTER XIV—FEATHERSTONE’S RECITAL
And this is what Mr. Simon Lock read, while Mr. Oakley watched his master’s face. The calligraphy of the document was miraculously neat and small, and the thing had all the appearance of a declaration formally made:
‘Statement of me, Robert John Dalrymple Featherstone, made on the day before my death. (Here followed the date.)
‘This statement is intended to be perfectly plain and simple. I put down facts as they occur to me in the most straightforward possible way. I have never before in my life undertaken any sort of literary composition, beyond letters to acquaintances. My parents dying when I was a boy, and me being an only child, I have had no relatives; nor have I ever had an intimate friend. I do not know why I am at the trouble to write out this statement now. I only know that I am compelled to make it by an instinct, or an impulse, which overpowers my ordinary common-sense. It cannot be a matter of any importance that the world should understand the circumstances under which I am led to commit suicide. The world will not care. And, on the other hand, this statement may work harm, or at least annoyance, to one whom I love. Nevertheless I must write it. Everyone, perhaps, who commits suicide feels this tremendous desire to explain to the world the reasons of his act—that act for which there is no remedy, that act which he knows, if he is a Christian, must involve him in eternal remorse.
‘As I write I have a sort of feeling that what I put down may be printed in the newspapers. This feeling causes me to want to write unnaturally, in a strained and showy measure. I shall try to avoid this. All my life I have lived quiet and retired. This was not because I was modest. I am not more modest than other mediocre men. It was because I was shy and awkward and reserved by nature in the presence of others. When I am alone I feel bumptious, audacious; I feel like a popular actor.
‘But let me begin.
‘My age is fifty-six. For thirty years I have been in the service of the British and Scottish Banking Corporation, Limited. For eight years before that I was in the service of a small private bank in Northamptonshire. I have always served the British and Scottish faithfully, to the best of my ability. Yet after thirty years I was only a cashier in a suburban branch with a salary of two hundred a year—such an income as many a more fortunate man spends on cigars and neckties. I do not, however, blame anyone for this. I do not blame myself. I realize clearly that I am a very mediocre man, and deserved nothing better. I never had any talent for banking. I never had any talent for anything. I became a bank clerk through the persuasion and influence of a distant uncle. I agreed with him that it was an honourable and dignified vocation. It has suited me. I got used to the official duties. I soon learnt how to live within my income. I had no vicious tastes—no tastes of any sort. I had no social gifts. I merely did my work conscientiously. My evenings I spent reading the papers and periodicals and smoking. I have smoked two ounces of Old Judge per week regularly for five-and-twenty years. I have never smoked before lunch except during my annual fortnight at the seaside. Every morning at breakfast I have read the Standard. My political opinions have never varied.
‘Thus my life has been one of absolute sameness. There was no joy in it except the satisfaction of regular habits, and there was no sorrow, until last year but one (May 28th), when Miss Juana Craig walked into the office at Kilburn.
‘She said, “Is my father in his office?”